Traditional social media permit individuals to establish social relationships with one another in only rigid, delimited ways. Typically, such a relationship is established by a user assigning another user to a category or group, e.g., “friends,” “family,” or “acquaintances.” The terms of the relationship between any two users are defined by the category or group. For example, all users assigned by a given user to the category of “friends” may be permitted access to a certain set of information of the given user, while all users assigned by the given user to the category of “family” may be permitted to access a different set of information of the given user. It is generally not possible to establish an individualized relationship, i.e., a relationship with a user based on that individual user; rather, it is only possible to establish relationships based on the group or category to which the individual user is assigned. For example, a given user cannot establish a relationship with individual A permitting individual A to access set A of information, a relationship with individual B permitting individual B to access set B of information, and so on. Also, it is generally not possible to establish any relationships other than the relationships that are pre-defined according to the pre-defined categories of the particular social medium (e.g., Facebook®); in other words, it is not possible to establish customized relationships. For example, a given user cannot select which information to share with his or her “friends”; rather, the particular social medium dictates that all of the given user's friends have access to a pre-defined, specified set of information of the given user.
In addition, traditional social media permit and facilitate relationships generally for the purpose of personal social interaction, e.g., for the purpose of recreation or entertainment, professional networking, etc. These media typically do not provide resources for establishing relationships for the purpose of facilitating practical utility, e.g., increasing efficiency in the workplace and/or in the economy at large. One reason for this is that traditional social media generally permit and facilitate the sharing of rights to access limited types of information, but not other types of rights, e.g., rights to perform other kinds of actions.